Lawyer - News

The legal and social debate over death with dignity and assisted suicide is reignited. Recently, the Death with Dignity bill surfaced in Massachusetts, where Representative Louis Kafka filed the bill on behalf of Al Lipkind of Stoughton, Massachusetts, who fought for legislation prior to his death after battling stomach cancer.Co-hosts and attorneys J. Craig Williams and Bob Ambrogi welcome Barbara Coombs Lee, President of Compassion Choices to look at both sides of the controversial Death with Dignity Act, assisted suicide, ethical objections and current legislation here in the States and abroad. No comments

Once the first steps in implementing an effective written litigation hold are taken and a trigger event to preserve evidence is initiated, the organization needs to define the scope of the legal hold, say Howett Isaza partner John Isaza and Goldberg Segalla partner John J. Jablonski. No comments

Thursday's televised "summit" on health care proved to be a new forum in which Republican lawmakers could press for limits on medical malpractice awards, and another chance for the plaintiffs bar to play defense. Listing a tort overhaul as one of his party's priorities. Sen. Lamar Alexander, who is third in the U.S. Senate's GOP leadership, said there are too many "junk lawsuits against doctors." A lobbying group for plaintiffs lawyers responded in a Twitter feed with some counterclaims. No comments

A Philadelphia judge declined to vacate an arbitration award in a case brought against Schnader Harrison Segal Lewis by a retired partner over interpretations of amendments to the partnership agreement. Clinton Stuntebeck asked the judge to toss an arbitration award that found that changes to the firm's pension plan, including a move from lifetime benefits to a 10-year limit on payouts, was applicable to Stuntebeck. The judge said the arbitrator's interpretation of the contract was not reviewable by the court. No comments

A sprawling antitrust class action against computer memory manufacturers is about to settle. The deal avoids a risky oral argument in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and will end years of litigation between companies -- like Micron Technology, Hynix Semiconductor and Infineon Technologies -- and indirect purchasers of DRAM memory chips, which includes California and several other states. No comments

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who turns 90 on April 20, is closing in on some other major milestones. In about three months, Stevens, who joined the Court in 1975, will pass Chief Justice John Marshall in terms of length of service. A month after that he'll pass Justice Stephen Field's length of tenure as well, lagging behind only William O. Douglas, whose record tenure was 36 years, six months and 25 days. All these statistics are now available at the ever-useful Oyez Project Web site. No comments

A New York state judge has refused to throw out the $22.5 million verdict awarded by a jury in a 28-year-old polio vaccine suit. The jury found Pfizer, as successor to Lederle Laboratories, liable for negligent manufacture of the oral polio vaccine from which plaintiff Dominick Tenuto allegedly contracted polio while changing his infant daughter's diapers in 1979. No comments

Bernard Madoff's claim to have pulled off his multibillion-dollar swindle without assistance unraveled further on Thursday, as one of his longtime aides was charged with helping him cook the books. Daniel Bonventre, an accountant who worked for Madoff since the late 1960s, faces conspiracy, securities fraud and tax charges. Bonventre was also sued Thursday by the SEC, which accused him of falsifying records both to disguise Madoff's fraud and also to illegally enrich himself. Madoff is serving a 150-year prison sentence. No comments

A lawsuit against SmithKline Beecham over the suicide of 23-year-old Tricia Mason, who ended her life two days after taking the antidepressant Paxil, can go forward, the 7th Circuit ruled this week. In a unanimous decision reversing the lower court, the appeals court said that the drug manufacturer now known as GlaxoSmithKline didn't meet its burden of showing with "clear evidence" that the FDA would have rejected a change in the drug's labeling to warn about the enhanced possibility of suicide in young adults. No comments

An Atlanta federal judge's dismissal of the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust claims against several pharmaceutical companies that delayed a generic drug's market rollout through a settlement is a setback for the agency's opposition to such deals. Pharmaceutical companies claim the ruling affirms that patent settlements are pro-competitive and pro-consumer. But the FTC's Richard Feinstein says the ruling "underscores the need for a legislative solution." No comments